The Negotiating Committee is providing this update to the AMFA Membership at Southwest Airlines. This report is the only official authorized written source of negotiating communications by the Committee.

We met with the Company in Dallas, Texas on September 3rd and 4th for a scheduled two-day session. We began with the Company proposing Article 12: Leaves of Absence, Article 13: Sick Leave and On-The-Job Injuries, and Article 20: Insurance Benefits. Their proposals regarding these articles were basically capturing rules that the Facility Maintenance Technician (FMT) group is currently working under, which are outlined in the Guideline to Employees. After we worked through the Company’s proposals we presented our proposals for Article 6: Overtime and Holidays and Article 8: Field Service.

We worked in caucus after lunch and presented the Company with our counter offers to articles 12, 13, and 20. In Article 12 we adjusted the Company’s language detailing Military Service to mirror the language we have worked with in the Aircraft Maintenance Technician (AMT) negotiations. In Article 13 we proposed language as it is written in the AMT Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) including a sick time bank limit of 2000 hours and a 12-hour per month sellback rate to buy medical insurance after retirement. The main item in our Article 20 counter proposal was the addition of language detailing the "younger spouse" medical benefit that allows a member who is age 65 to continue to purchase medical insurance until their spouse reaches age 65.

We met on Thursday with the Company agreeing to Tentatively Agree (TA) Article 12. The Company said they needed to get higher approval for our articles 13 and 20 counter offers. They also detailed their intent to make a "package" proposal at our next session, which would include several articles that they viewed as related. This package would include counter offers to our articles 6 and 8 proposals plus articles 2: Scope, 4: Classifications (which is currently tabled), 5: Hours of Service, 9: Seniority, and 10: Filing of Vacancies.

Our side continues to be committed to making a concerted effort to reach an agreement that addresses our members’, and the Company’s, concerns. Our next scheduled dates for FMT Negotiations are September 17 and 18, 2014.